Adopted 28 April 1936 on BC map 3G, Quesnel, as identified in the 1930 BC Gazetteer (Ottawa file OBF 1484).

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

"La Hache L." labelled on Map of the Gold Regions of British Columbia, by Gust. Epner, 1862. "The name originated when a packhorse loaded with axes in a Hudson's Bay brigade drowned there." (9 October 1911 letter from F.W. Foster to Fleet Robertson, GBC).

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

"1862, Axe Lake (Champness 218-9)."
"A Frenchman is said to have lost his axe here in fur brigade days." (Manning, Place Names in the Cariboo, UBC)

Source: Provincial Archives of BC "Place Names File" compiled 1945-1950 by A.G. Harvey from various sources, with subsequent additions

"...after a mule with a load of hatchets fell into the lake (possibly through the ice), it became known as Lac la Hache. Confirmation is supplied by an 1871 entry in the diary of G.A. Sargison in the Provincial Archives: 'Derives its name from the Hudson's Bay Company having lost a lot of axes loaded on an animal'."

Source: Akrigg, Helen B. and Akrigg, G.P.V; British Columbia Place Names; Sono Nis Press, Victoria 1986 /or University of British Columbia Press 1997